conventional NDE processes such as film radiography, positive material identification, remote visual inspection, magnetic particle testing, penetrant testing, and hardness testing. It also provides welding engineering services such as welding program development, weld procedure development and qualification, and project management. “From AIT’s perspective, we are pleased to expand the advanced NDT services that we provide into Spitzer’s fabrication facilities,” said Jim Halley, who cofounded the company in March 2003 along with Michael Beard. NASA Prepares to Crush Giant ‘Can’ NASA has been readying to crush an immense aluminum-lithium rocket fuel tank to generate new “shellbuckling design factors” that will enable lightweight, safe, and sturdy “skins” for future launch vehicles. The test they had planned to conduct in late March 2011 is much like placing a soda can upright on the floor then standing on it until the can collapses. Testing for this study is under way at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., where engineers are supporting the test led by the NASA Engineering and Safety Center, based at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. The aerospace industry’s shell buckling knockdown factors are a complex set of engineering data that dates back to Apollo-era studies of rocket structures, which was well before modern composite materials, manufacturing processes, and advanced computer modeling. “Spacecraft structures, especially fuel tanks, are designed to be as thin as possible, as every pound of vehicle structure sacrifices valuable payload weight and can dramatically increase the cost of flying a rocket,” said Mark Hilburger, a senior research engineer at Langley and the principal investigator on this project. Research to date suggests a possible weight savings of as much as 20%. Technicians have moved a 27.5-ft-diameter and 20-ft-tall space shuttle external tank barrel-shaped test piece into place at Marshall’s Engineering Test Laboratory. It is sandwiched between two massive loading rings that will press down with almost one million pounds of force on the central cylindrical test article until it buckles. Leading up to the big crush, the 10 Inspection Trends / April 2011 The team moves the massive space shuttle external tank ‘can’ into place for the shell buckling knockdown test at Marshall Space Flight Center. (Photo courtesy of NASA/MSFC.)
Inspection Trends - April 2011 - Spring
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